


What To Do When Your Workplace Drama Gets Out Of Hand

by wintersnowing



Series: Scientists Are People Too (The Glass Scientists Short Stories feat. The Lodgers) [5]
Category: The Glass Scientists (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, accidental abuse?, but anyway, everybody has a Hyde au, here's some lodgers content, weird relationships man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-12 12:37:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19132159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintersnowing/pseuds/wintersnowing
Summary: Not that long ago, something ended up getting slipped into a few of the Lodgers' food and drinks. Not long after that, they've each found themselves with their very own alter ego, created from their repressions and fears, though no one yet knows that anyone else has an alter-ego, and are left wondering about all these new assistants. Some are violent, some rude, some liars, some cheaters... some stressed, some bitter, some aggressive, some stone-cold...





	What To Do When Your Workplace Drama Gets Out Of Hand

The whole disaster must have started that one night Tweedy had decided to go out and have a good time.

He didn’t let himself go out drinking much. His work was more important, as were his children, and he wasn’t willing to sacrifice either of those things for his own selfish gain. He just couldn’t afford to. Besides, he acted ridiculously when drunk, his wife had always said he…

Anyway. That night, everyone else had been heading out, and he had figured, what the hell, why not? So they had gone to a nearby bar, had a few drinks, and the next thing he knew, he was waking up the next morning on the floor of his lab, bright blond and panicking.

To condense two months’ worth of internal debating into a few sentences, something must have made its way into his glass, and now, there was another man sharing his mind. Whatever the thing in that whiskey had been, it had forced a massive change on his physical form, and now, usually at nights but still dangerously unpredictably, a fellow that had named himself Sylvester Baker took control. Sylvester wasn’t bad, really, but in all honesty, he was the exact opposite of what Tweedy might have hoped an alter ego might be like. He wasn’t any stronger or faster, had no powers to control anything, and was rather… disappointing in personality, to say the least. In fact, he was more like everything Tweedy didn’t like about himself, in a person of his own.

Sylvester was shy and soft-spoken, scared of denial, terribly self-deprecating, and often fearing making a wrong move. Words got through to him easily, and he was somewhat more quick to tear up than Tweedy cared to admit. Even worse was how all the man’s traits seemed to correspond to, or oppose in just the wrong way, one in his own self that he detested. Sure, after his wife’s passing he had been constantly worried about messing up and doing something wrong that would lose him something else he loved again, or growing too close to someone only to hurt them, or ruining something and having it blamed on him just as he blamed that carriage crash on himself… but at least he could cover it up and push it so far down it was barely there anymore with a good bit of strong personality and a rakish smile. Sylvester exhibited no such attempts, and, to Tweedy, only managed to look silly as a result.

The cherry on the ridiculous cake, of course, was how Sylvester had a crush. A _crush_ , of all things. On one of his coworkers’ assistants.

Tweedy himself had been covering up Sylvester’s strange and sudden appearance by saying he was an apprentice of his from his wild stormchasing days. During the times when Sylvester emerged from Tweedy’s mind into his physical body, he would mostly wander the Society without aim, thinking, usually talking to people only when people really had to be talked to, sometimes pretending to do apprentice things to keep up his guise. As long as he avoided too many prodding questions about his alleged past, everything had worked fairly smoothly, until he had run into Nadim.

Nadim Fisher was a newcomer to the Society, and Mr. Helsby’s lab assistant; some relative of a relative, from what he knew. He wasn’t _terribly_ bad-looking with his smaller build and elegant features, Tweedy supposed, but he was still too shy and quiet to be really attractive, either. Unfortunately, Sylvester was dazzled.

 _That_ was why they were in this situation. Sylvester’s terrible taste in men.

It was approaching midnight, and Sylvester and Nadim were sitting together on a bench in the Society’s deserted front foyer. Sylvester’s pale skin was working up a blush, but thankfully, Nadim didn’t seem to notice. In fact, he seemed distracted.

“…and of course I assumed the equation was supposed to- Nadim?” Sylvester asked, interrupting himself in the middle of a part-excited, part-nervous ramble.

The assistant bathynaut glanced up, startled. “Pardon? I mean, yes, I was listening.”

“If there’s something bothering you, I can just…” Sylvester nodded towards the doorway, already starting to get up.

Nadim anxiously smiled a little and waved a hand, gesturing for him to stay. “No, it’s fine. I was just… lost in my thoughts for a moment.”

_Are you really sure this is a good idea?_

The uncharacteristically gentle voice was Helsby’s, and only audible to Nadim himself.

As of course, Nadim was not just Helsby’s lab assistant. Helsby himself had gained another personality that night.

Nadim gave a minute nod of the head in answer to Helsby’s question, setting his jaw in determination. Sylvester was the kindest, gentlest fellow he knew, without a brash bone in his body. If there was anyone on Earth likely to return his affections, it would be him. He’d never turn him away, would he?

“If you say so.” Sylvester looked away, then smiled. “If I’m making you uncomfortable, you can just tell me, don’t worry.”

“Oh- no, it’s not like that at all!” Nadim blurted, immediately regretting it. Sylvester looked taken aback. “It’s just that- well- Sylvester, I have something to tell you.”

The blond man hesitated. In his and Tweedy’s shared experiences, this rarely ended well. “…Yes?”

“Well… Sylvester…” Nadim faltered, took a breath, looked away, licked his lips, pushed his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose from which they had begun to slide, and looked back. He raised his chin to look Sylvester in the eye. “I- I really enjoy your company. I’m sure you’ve noticed that. You’re a good friend. However…”

“Am I being too annoying?” Sylvester cut him off before he could go any further, looking mortified. It seemed as though the blond’s default reaction was to paranoically blame himself. Nadim almost would have laughed, if he hadn’t been about to have a panic attack from Sylvester’s response as he continued with a worried, “I’m so sorry, Nadim. I’ll try not to bother you anymore.”

“No! It’s not that, either! It’s that I want to think of you as more than a friend!”

Dead silence. Sylvester had gone stock still and wide-eyed.

Nadim started to worry even more than he had already been worrying, but still continued on, gaining confidence as he went. “I- I really do. I don’t trust easily, but you- around you, I feel safe. You’re the kind of person I want to spend more time with, and maybe… well, I can only hope you feel the same, because I want to be with you.”

Internally, Sylvester was experiencing a thousand emotions at once. Joy, because the man he had thought had no feelings for him had just confessed the opposite. Thankfulness, because Nadim had confessed first, saving himself the stress of having to do it himself later on.

Panic, because all of a sudden, now that the possibility of a real relationship was open, Sylvester couldn’t think of anyone except for Samanthe. Samanthe, who he had let die. Who he had _made_ die. Samanthe, cold dead Samanthe.

He couldn’t do this!

What had he been thinking? This could never work. He’d only disappoint himself and everyone around him, just like last time. He would fail Nadim. He couldn’t do it.

“…Sylvester?” Nadim asked, growing ever more anxious. The other man hadn’t said a word in nearly half a minute, and the silence was getting awkward fast.

“…I…”

Sylvester stared at him, panic and turmoil clear in his eyes. Did he want this? Absolutely. More than he’d ever wanted anyone else, aside from Samanthe, and even his feelings for her were muted, since he wasn’t Tweedy anymore.

But he couldn’t hurt him. He wouldn't let himself do it. Best to have never started something than have to cut it off later, amidst disappointment and sorrow.

“…I have to go,” was what Sylvester found coming out of his mouth, and he was on his feet and running out of the foyer before he could explain, before he thought about what he was doing, before he even realized tears were starting to gather. Just like an ashamed, useless, disappointing child.

* * *

 

Nadim, left behind in the foyer, sat still.

He didn’t say a word to his alter ego, who knew better than to make a snarky comment back. The reaction had hurt Helsby nearly as badly as it had hurt Nadim himself. Even though the bathynaut didn’t share his feelings towards the blond, the rejection still scalded. Every rejection did. It hurt so much it was almost physical.

In the past, Nadim had found the people who had hurt Helsby by throwing him away, and did what needed to be done to make sure their actions were met with what they deserved. It was the last thing one would have expected out of a man like himself, but Nadim knew it had to be done. He knew that, without fear of repercussions, he could finally deliver justice to the people who had broken his heart.

But Sylvester… what was he going to do about him?

Nadim didn’t know what to feel. The next time they met, then he would see, and maybe his feelings would have sorted themselves out a little by then.

Sylvester curled up in Tweedy’s laboratory, shaking.

God, he had really made a mess of this, hadn’t he. He could have at least explained his fears, talked everything through, but here he was, crying and hiding in shame, wanting to protect everyone from himself but only succeeding in making them hurt more. He didn’t want to be weak, but Tweedy was right. He was.

Sylvester cried until he couldn’t anymore, then, lying there with energy drained, a painful tightening in his chest began to remind him of Tweedy’s presence.

He curled up tighter, feeling his whole being start to shift and burn as his alter ego unwillingly pushed up through his skin.

And not long after, Tweedy sat up slowly, pushing a hand through his disheveled hair, felt the staticky crackles that meant he really was back in his own body, took a few slow breaths, then went to wash his face.

Almost a week passed without any sign of Sylvester. Tweedy was almost concerned from the lack of comments, the lack of the expected unexpected transformations he always had to excuse some way or another. It was as though his alter ego had withdrawn deep into Tweedy’s mind, somewhere where he could suffer in silence without anyone able to offer help. His withdrawal had gotten to the point where other Lodgers were asking him where his so-called apprentice had gone, and Tweedy made up some story about him having to go attend to family matters, but both he and everyone else knew that the story sounded more than a little feeble. The man may have been soft-spoken and meek, but people somehow noticed his presence, and felt his absence.

Helsby was working in his lab one day during this time, humming, sipping from a big mug of coffee next to him, doing anything he could possibly think of to keep Nadim’s and his minds off of certain recent developments. It wasn’t working, evidently- out of the corner of his eye, he could see the ethereal mindform of the smaller man sitting in a chair at the other end of the room, hands clasped in his lap, head low.

Helsby paused in his humming and straightened up, taking his glasses off with a sigh and polishing them on the tail of his jacket. “Still thinking about him?”

Nadim didn’t respond.

Helsby sighed again, putting his glasses back on and his hands in his pockets. “Listen, I know it’s a blow, but we’ve gotten rejected before.” He chose to neglect mention of the fact that the previous rejections had been followed by Nadim taking action against them. It was scary, really- how his alter ego changed gears from an embarrassingly shy man to one so devoted to the sole purpose of delivering justice that he forgot how to feel.

Helsby tried not to think about the implications of that on his own self.

 _I really did think he might feel the same in return, though, or at least could be decent enough to talk about it before leaving me,_ Nadim continued softly.

“Are you going to… you know…”

_We’ll see._

And before Helsby could get another word out, the painful pulling in his chest warned him of a transformation. He gasped and buckled to the floor, silently thanking any God that was out there that at least he had been alone in his room this time round. He wasn’t always so lucky.

* * *

 

While Tweedy was working, the door to his laboratory opened.

He didn’t take much notice at first, seeing a glimpse of brown hair and assuming it Pennebrygg, his sometimes lab partner, but whoever it was was standing by his desk and waiting for him to take his welding goggles off. After making a few more adjustments with the torch, he turned it off and looked up.

It was Nadim, wearing a coat that didn’t seem to fit him right. After squinting for a moment, Tweedy recognized it as Helsby’s, but before he could comment on it, Nadim spoke. He sounded odd.

“Where’s Sylvester?” he asked. “It- it’s important that I get a chance to talk to him.”

“Oh, hadn’t you been told?” Tweedy replied, fakely nonchalantly. “He’s headed back to his hometown for a little while.”

“I -oh. He did?”

That hurt. First he had run out of the foyer, and now he had run out of the city? Nadim’s eyes stung. Was he really that averse to him now?

Tweedy, noticing the slight change in expression, let out a breath and looked down guiltily.

“He won’t be away for long, though,” he invented. “Told me some story about being homesick. He’ll get over it soon.”

 _Must you say that?_ Sylvester fretted, a very soft voice in the back of Tweedy’s head. The surprise, and yes, the little bit of relief gained from hearing him again almost startled him enough into physically jumping, which he narrowly avoided. Nadim gave him a funny look.

“Well… that’s good to know. Could you tell him to come see me when he gets back?”

Tweedy nodded and smiled. “Will do, Mr. Fisher. Good to see you.”

Nadim nodded back and turned on his heel, heading out again and trying to shift Helsby’s coat to sit right on his thin shoulders.

As he went, Tweedy noticed a small stain near the hem of the coat. It looked oddly reddish, but Nadim had turned the corner before he could look closer.

He picked up his welding torch again.

* * *

 

Tweedy had his head on his desk an hour later, hands over his ears, with the most exhausted expression on his face.

Sylvester hadn’t stopped talking for the last sixty minutes, rambling in a panic about Nadim and having to face him again. Tweedy couldn’t even remember why he had missed him in the first place. Ah well. When it rained, it poured.

“Still, though,” Tweedy mumbled eventually, cutting through the unending stream of thoughts that his hands did nothing to block out, “you have to face him at some point. Things need to get cleared up, and you’re the only one who can do it.”

 _But why me?_ he lamented.

“Because, if you really do like him, you have to talk through things.” Tweedy hesitated for a long moment before he went on with, “That’s what Samanthe and I did. Communication is important, you know.”

 _Of course I know, I just…_ Sylvester gave the mental equivalent of a sigh. _It’s so hard. Especially when I’m… like this._

“Yeah… I know what you mean.”

_Do you, though?_

“Not really, but hey. A good word’s always needed.” Tweedy got up. “I’ll get your clothes out. You’ll do it tonight.”

 _What!? Tonight?_ Sylvester flew straight into a panic, pale red and violet hues blooming in Tweedy’s vision. He winced and rubbed his temples. “Calm down. You’ll do brilliantly.”

_You know I can’t!_

“Of course you can.”

Yes, it was a lie. But while he was suppressing everything else, why not suppress the truth a little too? He might as well try and make the poor bloke feel a little better.

Sylvester slumped a little. _Whatever you say..._

“That’s the spirit, mate. Now where did you leave that tie?”

_I put it on the electrodesensitizer._

“Why would you put it there?”

_Because you never wear ties. That being said, you don’t have a tie drawer._

“I’m pretty sure those don’t exist.”

_Then where did you expect me to put it?_

Tweedy cracked a sliver of his characteristic grin, retrieving the tie. Sylvester wasn’t all that bad, not all the time.

Later, just as night was beginning to fall, Sylvester walked out through the doors of Tweedy’s lab, looking around nervously. The Lodgers were mostly down in the common room, eating, working, and talking, the lights in the hall put out just to be safe. There was a small electric one still on, shining faintly a little way down the hall- Tweedy had put it up, just outside Sinnett’s room as per his request. One could assume the poor fellow was scared of the dark.

Sylvester sighed and looked at his feet, walking onwards slowly. Trying to distract himself really wasn’t working. He had to go over what he was going to say to Nadim. He was going to say _Nadim, I’m terribly sorry for my behaviour the last time we spoke. It was terribly rude of me, and I really should have spoken things through with you better._ Or should it be more like _I truly should have talked things out_ or maybe _organized the situation_ or… hmm.

Sylvester was so deep in thought that he almost didn’t even notice when someone stepped around the far end of the hall. When he did, he jumped.

Of all the people it could have been…

Nadim stared at him, expression somewhere between surprise and worry. Sylvester stared back.

Like a thread, his resolve snapped. He couldn’t do this, damn it. He averted his eyes, and turned away.

For Nadim, that decided it. Sylvester hated him for confessing. That was all there was to it. The only thing he could do now was do what was right, so Sylvester couldn’t hurt anyone else. He had to keep Helsby safe. He had to keep everyone safe. Anyone who might ever fall in love with that gold-haired devil in disguise would be in the same danger, the same trap as Nadim himself.

Nadim walked up behind him, just as he neared the light by the dead end of the hallway.

And as Sylvester noticed a shadow cast on the floor behind him that was not his own, Nadim shoved him back into the wall.

Sylvester gasped and struggled, arms pinned to his sides. For his small size, Nadim was surprisingly strong. He stared down at the shorter man, stunned and frightened into silence.

Nadim had tears in his eyes, teeth gritted with the effort it took to keep his hands steady. “You can’t do this to me. I’m sorry.”

“Nadim- what are you doing!?”  Sylvester managed to choke out, pulling at Nadim’s grip. “Why?”

“Justice,” he spat, voice shaking. “You hate me for what I said, and you’ll only hurt more people if I let you go.”

“I- don’t know what you’re-”

Oh God. Nadim thought he was trying to turn him down. There was nothing and no one at fault here but his own stupid indecisiveness. Sylvester made a choked sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

“Oh no- Nadim, that’s not-”

“Shut up!” he shouted, and his voice broke as he whispered “shut up!” again. “Just don’t lie to me.”

“…Please…”

And with that one simple word, Nadim’s resolve finally broke. This wasn’t one of Helsby’s lovers, where one could see the carelessness in their eyes after they left him. This was Sylvester, this was the sweet man with the lavender eyes and golden hair he couldn’t resist, this was the man _he_ loved. Not as Helsby. As himself. And Sylvester wasn’t trying to deceive him.

Nadim didn’t realize he had let him go and fallen to the ground until the blond knelt by his side a few meters away, looking scared for him but too afraid to approach. Someone was crying and whimpering “I’m sorry” over and over again, who was that?

Then, Sylvester put a finger over his lips, and the begging stopped.

Nadim stared up at him with wide eyes, blurry with teardrops. Sylvester was trying to smile down at him.

“Nadim,” he said softly, “I forgive you. It’s all right.”

And that just ended up making him cry harder. Sylvester pulled him close, and Nadim sobbed wordlessly into his chest.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, I promise.”

Sylvester held him until he couldn’t cry anymore, then gently pulled away and looked at him from arm’s length. His eyes were a little red himself, but they were earnest. “Nadim, I’m sorry for how I acted. It was stupid of me, not talking through my feelings when I first had the chance. But I swear, I l-”

He hesitated, not quite ready to say that yet. “I won’t ever do it again if it bothers you.”

Nadim sniffled. “You’re too good for me.”

Sylvester, smiling just a bit, thinking about how he wasn’t even a complete human being, replied, “Oh, shush.”

Nadim gave a little laugh and started to reach forwards again, then hesitated.

Sylvester gave him another hug, giving his shoulders a gentle squeeze before shyly pulling away again and looking into his eyes. God, it felt good to hug someone again… the last time had been with-

Nope. No, he wasn’t thinking of Tweedy’s wife, not now, not when Nadim was right here in front of him. There was a tiny mole on his cheekbone just below his right eye, his lashes were still shiny with tears in the soft glow of the single light, there was a little gap between his teeth just visible past his parted lips… when did he get close enough to notice all this?

Nadim gazed back. He was close enough to see every little colour in Sylvester’s skin, and his eyes were pale lavender, and they were looking into his, and God, he was beautiful. He swallowed.

Their lips touched.

Nadim’s eyes widened, giving a little gasp and pulling back as though he had been zapped. Maybe he had been. The man was electric, metaphorically… and often literally.

Sylvester looked startled for just a moment, before smiling a little and looking away. “After all the dodging I did, I suppose I deserved that.”

Nadim only shook his head, the gesture saying all the things that his words couldn’t. He leaned in again, this time with purpose, and they kissed once, twice, uncountable times.

At some point, Sylvester had pulled him up by the hand and they had half-run, half-staggered back to Tweedy’s room, laughing, drunk on each other. They had kissed more, then fallen back onto his bed and kissed again.

Sylvester’s lavender eyes were bright in the darkness, and it was the light of those eyes that Nadim found himself lost in.

* * *

 

The night was growing old when Sylvester suddenly awoke to a pain in his chest.

Oh, no.

Not here, not now. He bolted upright, pulling out of Nadim’s arms and scrambling to find his clothes. Nadim made a soft “mm?” of confusion and started to sit up, just as Sylvester fell off the bed.

He was too late to make it out unnoticed, that much was clear already. Tweedy was panicking too, trying to think up a way to explain this, but his hair was already blackening and pulling back into his scalp, body aching as it produced muscle mass from who knows where. His scar bloomed over one eye, as raw and as red as if it were just burned into his skin, before sealing and turning into an old mar.

Nadim, worried, crawled to the edge of the bed only to be met with writhing limbs under a pile of bedsheets. A glimpse of oddly dark hair here, a leg there- what was going on?

All at once, there was Tweedy’s face poking out from the mess of fabric, quite unclothed, and looking like he would very much appreciate a good break of the neck right about then. He sat up quickly, covering himself as well as he could. “Wait, I can explain…”

Nadim stared.

 _Oh my G-_ Helsby began, before Nadim raised an eyebrow.

“Were you hiding under the bed?” he asked.

Tweedy stared straight back at him for a long second, and Helsby mentally did the same, before Nadim realized, and internally smacked his forehead.

“Wait… you…”

The next words out of his mouth were the last ones Tweedy could have expected.

“You’re like me.”

It was Tweedy’s turn to feel like an idiot. “ _What_?”

“You’re two people in one, too.”

“…When you say ‘like me’… do you mean you’re…”

Wait a minute. Nadim had been wearing Helsby’s coat earlier.

Tweedy’s eyes widened. It couldn’t be possible.

“…You’re not just Ranjit’s lab assistant, are you.”

Nadim opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, a little choked noise escaped his throat and he fell into his side.

 _God damn it!_ Helsby cursed, before he and Nadim began to switch places as well.

Tweedy watched the change, horrified, but unable to look away. There was something interesting in watching the transformation from a perspective other than his own. Limbs began to creak and grind as they stretched drastically- Helsby was at least a full foot taller than Nadim.

It wasn’t long before the bathynaut was curled on his side on the bed. He flopped over onto his back, much less bashful about his lack of clothes, and groaned.

“You don’t love me, do you?” Tweedy asked right away. “Because you have a partner, and I’m… not open to this sort of thing, so-”

“Don’t worry about it, Sparky. I’m pretty sure that he and I are different enough to not share love interests.” He sat up and went to pick up his coat.

Tweedy relaxed, just a little, at the thought, getting up to dress himself. He hadn’t really considered that. He and Sylvester had always seemed too intimately connected- they were two parts of the same soul, for Christ’s sake!- to be different in any way, but now that he thought about it, Sylvester wasn’t much like him at all. All the qualities he had never liked in himself, woven into a new person for which those qualities somehow fit. And yet, there were some parts that were solely Sylvester’s, such as his… um… innocent liking for Nadim.

Hm. He’d have to think on this for a little more.

There was a shuffling from outside the door, and Tweedy froze.

He crept over, quietly as he could, but whoever was out there must have heard, and had hurried away. Tweedy groaned. “And now someone’s heard you in my room. The rumours’ll never end.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Helsby commented. “I mean, they can’t possibly be worse than what I’ve been saying about you and Pennebrygg.”

“Me and- _what!?_ ”

 _God, this is terrible,_ Tweedy thought while he chased a cackling half-clothed Helsby down the hall. Sylvester, however, was overjoyed with how he and Nadim were finally on the right track, and Tweedy supposed that had to count for something.

**Author's Note:**

> This AU belongs to my great pal Morgan! It probably won't make much sense to those who don't know much about the full AU, but hey, it was fun to write, and the Hydes are great.
> 
> Expect more Lodger content soon!


End file.
